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Well friends, please keep Mark 5 open, let me pray, and then let's have a look. I have any father, we thank you so much that you speak to us in your word, the Bible, and you speak to us clearly. We pray now that you would help us to be challenged by the reality of spiritual conflict

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and be comforted by the power and authority of Christ Jesus. And we pray that as we wrestle with these things, you might help us think hard about how to continue to preach all of Christ to all the people that are coming to our shores. And we pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

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Let me introduce you to Rajiv. Rajiv is a hypothetical person, there will be nothing on the screen. He lives in a rural village in Mayong in Assam. When you meet him for the first time, you notice he is really very distracted.

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He is unable to take on the burden of responsibility to tend to his cattle, or to carry out all of the religious obligations of his household. And all of these things, they bring significant shame. He is unable to relate to his family, and that brings him crushing sadness.

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He is not in his right mind, he can't control his bodily movements, he lashes out violently at those who are desperately trying to protect him from self-harm. Rajiv is a man that is so bound and oppressed and crushed and despondent that he and his village have very little hope for what the future brings.

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Rajiv is believed to be demon possessed. Now perhaps we don't see much of this more broadly in Sydney, let alone in the West. But demonic attack is all too common in the majority world, there are many Rajivs. And if we believe our Bibles, we believe in the spiritual, which means we also believe

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evil. Perhaps it looks a little bit less like the exorcism of Emily Rose and a little bit more like the slow grip of a boa constrictor, squeezing out life and joy through the false idols of materialism and hedonism and busyness.

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But it's definitely there. I think to be honest, CS Lewis has done us a wonderful service as he has published the screw table letters, making just this point. I think of this scene, it's a convention for evil angels who strategize on how to mess

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with Christians. It'll come up on the screen. Keep them busy in the non-essentials of life and invent innumerable schemes to occupy their minds, he answered, tempt them to spend, spend, spend and borrow, borrow, borrow, persuade

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them to work for long hours, to work six to seven days a week, 10 to 12 hours a day, so they can afford their lifestyles. Keep them from spending time with their children, as their family fragments soon, their home will often no escape from the pressures of work.

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Overstimulate their minds so that they cannot hear that still small voice, entice them to play the radio or cassette player whenever they drive. To keep the TV, VCR CDs and their PCs going constantly in their homes. See to it that every store and restaurant in the world plays non-biblical music constantly.

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This will jam their minds and break that union with Christ. Fill the coffee table with magazines and newspapers, pound their minds with the news 24 hours a day, invade their driving moments with billboards, flood their mailboxes with junk mail, sweepstakes, mail order catalogs, and every kind of newsletter and promotional offering

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free products, services and false hopes. Even in their recreation, let them be excessive, have them return from their recreation exhausted, disquieted, unprepared for the coming week. Don't let them go out in nature to reflect on God's wonders.

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Send them to amusement parks, sporting events, concerts and movies instead. And when they meet for spiritual fellowship, involve them in gossip and small talk so that they leave with trouble, consciences and unsettled emotion. Let them be involved in soul-winning, but crowd their lives with so many good causes they

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have no time to seek power from Christ. Soon, they will be working in their own strength, sacrificing their health and family for the good of the cause. I wonder, as you read that, how much of that sounds a bit too familiar?

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The evil is real, spiritual attack is real, and we need to know how Jesus scratches below the surface and speaks into our real needs, addresses our real fears, opens our eyes to the reality of the devil's deceptions, and guarantees a place for us by bringing assurance to an otherwise shaky and structural world.

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We all need to hear this because, make no mistake, we are all caught up in spiritual conflict, unable to help ourselves and absolutely in need of a Savior. And this is where the gospel accounts, they really do help us. As we turn to Mark 5 for a few minutes this morning, Jesus comes face to face with demons.

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And it comes in the context of Jesus overturning the greatest fears of the world, overturning that which oppresses and keeps us up at night. It comes really in four days. Just before the episode, Jesus deals with natural disasters.

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Now he encounters or deals with demons. Just after this episode, Jesus deals with disease, and then of course, Jesus deals with death, death, as he raises, gyrosis daughter back to life. Disaster, demons, disease, and death.

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And Jesus displays his power and authority over all of them. Now we start in Mark 5 this one, we start with the nature of demon possession. Jesus and his disciples went across the lake to the region of the garrisons, when Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an impure spirit came from the tombs to meet him.

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And what was this man like? This man lived in the tombs. No one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, for he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the ions on his feet.

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No one was strong enough to subdue him, night and day, among the tombs and in the hills, he would cry out and cut himself with stones. Do you see restraints? They don't work.

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He hung around tombs, representative of death. He was disturbed and oppressed. The weight of the possession was painful in all sorts of ways. He cried out.

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He cut himself with stones. He was not in his right mind. Evil is relentless in its desire to bring torment and pain and suffering and force unwilling submission and produce feelings of no escape and bring about death.

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And this is the sort of vulnerability we face should we encounter evil on our own. The spiritual world is real. You have to believe that if you take your Bible seriously and the answer to the problem of evil in our world does not rest in the ingenuity of humanity.

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It just doesn't work. I mean, I think that's the point of this episode. Security and safety, ultimately, from the things that we are most fearful of. These things don't come from human solutions because humans on our own don't have any

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control over this sort of power. You can imagine that this man was robbed of everything good, friend's family, a stable job fulfilling his responsibility. He had no life to speak of, he had no hope to speak of, and so he basically wasn't really

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living at all. It may look a bit different, but isn't that our world at large? Life squeezed out, subdued and oppressed, barely living and just a bit hopeless. You are also noticed that everything changes when Jesus confronts the problem.

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Jesus, you see, he sets himself up as Lord over evil. And it's obvious from the beginning of their interaction. Look at it, verse 6. When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him.

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He shouted at the top of his voice, "What do you want with me, Jesus, son of the most high God?" In God's name, don't torture me. For Jesus had said to him, "Come out of this man, you impure spirit."

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You see, we learn a lot about Jesus here. First thing, verse 6, "The man controlled by the demons is on his knees in front of Jesus." I mean, just think about that image in your mind.

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One is on his knees and begging. The other is standing upright and receiving the desperate plea of the two of these, which is in control. Who is the one with all the power?

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But more, verse 7, he acknowledges that Jesus is the son of the most high God. All throughout Mark's gospel so far, there has been a challenge by Mark to the readers and hearers of this gospel to work out who Jesus really is. Mark gives it away at the very beginning of the gospel.

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Mark chapter 1, verse 1, "The beginning of the good news about Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God." And really, from verse 2, the implicit challenge for all who are receiving this gospel is to work out whether we agree with Mark or not.

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And we have account after account of Jesus that seems to show that he is more than your average rabbi. I mean, who can control the wind and the waves? Who can control disease?

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Who is able to give life and who is able to take it away? Or here, who is it that is acknowledged by even the demons to be son of the most high God? Basically as far as the demons are concerned, there is no question about who is boss.

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The demons know that Jesus is the highest authority in the entire universe. What else can the demon possessed man do but get on his knees and beg that Jesus doesn't torture him? Can you see how Jesus rules?

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Jesus is the one with the ultimate authority of God. We just read how no one could control this demon possessed man and yet this uncontrollable force of evil controlled without even breaking a sweat by the most high authority in every realm.

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And almost to reinforce the point, verse 9, Jesus asked him, "What is your name?" My name is Legion, he replied, "For we are many." And he begged Jesus again and again not to send them out of the area. Now, just so you know, I think sometimes we are misled a little bit by exorcism movies

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where one of the exorcism rights necessary to remove a demon from a person is to ask its name. I think the point here in the Gospel of Mark is the extent of this man's possession and how much it shows how powerful he is and more than that, just how much more powerful Jesus

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is. He's not possessed by one demon, the name given is a Legion, a Legion consists of thousands of soldiers, an army of demons in this man, an army of evil and they are on their knees in front of Jesus begging him not to torment them.

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And verse 11, "A large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside. The demons begged Jesus send us among the pigs, allowed us to go into them. He gave them permission and the impure spirits came out and went into the pigs." The herd about 2000 in number rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.

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And again we see more of Jesus' authority and power. The demons, they begged Jesus for permission. They couldn't move without his command. And the moment he gave it, that extraordinarily powerful Legion of demons took the pigs, jumped

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off a bank into a lake and drowned. Jesus has dealt with a seemingly uncontrollable demonic force controlling thousands of evil spirits, impossible for human beings but perfectly reasonable for King Jesus. And they were drowned in a bed of water which maybe seems to imply they were sent back

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to the underworld to where they should have been. Doesn't that show us how powerful and incontrolled Jesus really is? Doesn't that give us a warm sense of reassurance knowing that there is one who has the very authority of God who can control things that are seemingly uncontrollable?

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Isn't it reassuring that we aren't left to our own devices to struggle through the injustices and hurts and oppression of the devil's scheming without any hope of victory over these things? Our deepest insecurities basically summarized with the four deeds, destructive nature, demons,

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disease and death and Jesus deals with them all. And I might add, he has the ability to deal with all of these things no matter where you are and no matter who you are. I remember the scene is filled with pigs and the garrisons is a Gentile region.

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They are in pagan territory and Jesus' authority is just as obvious in pagan territory as well. Do you see Jesus is more powerful than your average local deity? Unlike many of the lowercase G gods who are believed to only have authority in their

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area, Jesus is dealing with spiritual forces even outside of Jewish territory. He has authority everywhere. I wonder if there's a little clue about this in verse 10 as the man begged Jesus again and again, not to send him out of the area.

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You see, this legion saw this area as their dominion until Jesus arrived. Isn't that comforting? It's comforting. If you come for the predominantly Hindu village somewhere in India and it's just as comforting

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in the agnostic or atheist streets of Sydney. Jesus' offer of victory over the uncontrollable is available to all of us, to all those that we know, to those who come into contact with on a daily basis. His dominion as king is far reaching over all things.

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And this is true of geography, whether Nepal or Pakistan or India or Sri Lanka or Bangladesh or Bhutan or Australia. And it is true, even if we are talking about the spiritual realm, no matter what heights or depths you search, no matter whether you journey as far as the east is from the west,

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Jesus is king there too and he's king there permanently. Can you see the reassurance? When we are plagued by powerful things beyond our control, living in our world where we just don't feel safe.

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If we put out trust in Jesus, we can be sure that wherever we are, evil cannot touch us without his express permission. Now, it's curious how power and authority are shown in this episode, I think. In verse 14, the pig farmers run off and report in the town and countryside everything

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that has happened. Verse 15, "When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the Legion of Demons sitting there dressed in his right mind and they were afraid." Those who had seen it told the people what had happened to the demon possessed man and

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about the pigs as well, then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region. First thing, end of verse 15, "They were afraid." And maybe it sounds a bit weird, but it actually tracks, doesn't it? If they were afraid of the Legion of Demons, then they better be afraid of the one who

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has significantly more authority than the demons. That's a right and natural response to coming into contact with a force that wields the very control and command and authority of God. It seems right, doesn't it?

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The same thing happens when Jesus deals with the wind and the waves in the episode before this one. A furious squall comes up, breaks over the boat, terrible and appropriate fear kicks in. And all the disciples, they desperately cry out, "Teacher, don't you care if we drown?"

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And Jesus rebukes the wind and the waves and everything is calm. And 441 day, the disciples were terrified and asked each other, "Who is this?" Even the wind and the waves obey him. See, they were afraid of natural disasters, until Jesus shows more power and authority

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than the natural disaster. They're afraid of demons, until Jesus shows he has more power and authority than the Legion. But maybe they shouldn't have been afraid, at least not as afraid as they were.

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They should have looked around at the scene and seen the man in front of them. Obviously out of his mind uncontrollable, tormented, yet now 515 they saw the man who had been possessed by the legions of demons sitting there, dressed and in his right mind. The contrast, the juxtaposition, it's outstanding.

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It should well up in a sense of amazement, unleashed, cutting himself with stones, couldn't be bound, terrorizing the town, hanging out in the places of death. Now sitting still, dressed, hanging out in the places of the living next to Jesus and in his right mind.

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You see, someone so powerful that they overpowered that which you are scared of might very well make you feel scared. But Jesus gives us more than just someone with full authority. Don't get me wrong, his power is absolutely necessary, a nice guy who has no authority

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isn't really going to help us in our torment. But here we have the powerful God man who is also compassionate. He comes to serve his people, to restore those who are broken and weary and heavy burdened. He comes to release the world from the shackles of those imprisoned by the strong man of this

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world. A couple of chapters earlier in chapter 3, there is a little parable that Jesus told. It was in a scene where the teachers of the law accused Jesus of driving out demons by the power of demons.

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And here's the alternative that Jesus gives, it'll come up on the screen. How can Satan drive out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand.

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And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand, his end has come. In fact, no one can enter a strong man's house without first tying him up. Then he can plunder the strong man's house. You see, Jesus isn't driving out demons by the power of the Prince of Demons, that is nonsense.

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Jesus is the stronger man. And as he ties up the strong man, Satan, he can go into his house, that area which he has supposed dominion over, and he can start plundering. You see, this episode in Mark 5 illustrates the parable.

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Jesus ties up the strong man. He deals definitively with the legion of demons, and he plunders the region in saving the people from destruction and terror. And yet, Mark 5 is still a very minor episode that illustrates something much more definitive.

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By the end of the Gospel of Mark, we see Jesus pulling off the ultimate tying of the strong man, his death on the cross. And as he ties the strong man, achieves victory, shows himself in death and resurrection to be more powerful and with more authority than everyone else.

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He plunders the strong man's territory, and he does this beyond just the region of the garrisons, and not just in 1st century Palestine, but he plunders from every tribe and tongue and nation, and he takes people out of the oppression and the stronghold of Satan and demons and evil, and he takes them into a glorious new house, the house of his father in heaven.

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And by the way, not just as a temporary guest, but as an adopted child. That's what the stronger man Jesus is doing. That is what Mark 5 is ultimately pointing to. Jesus who came not to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many.

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The Apostle Paul later on explains just how much assurance we can have in Jesus, the compassionate stronger man. Now look at the extent of the authority and power of Christ. This is the question, "Who or what can separate us from the love of God?"

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Answer Romans 8, "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord."

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And there's more. People were told about the demon possessed man, but also noticed they were told about the pigs. And the question always in Bible study is, "What's up with the pigs?"

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You see, the livelihood of the pig farmers was gone. There was economic loss. I assumed 2000 pigs brings pretty big money. And so they asked Jesus to leave their region.

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You see, that's the other thing about power and authority of this kind of magnitude. It brings change. The whole town is utterly transformed. What Jesus brings, it shakes up the normal way of doing things.

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It messes with our comforts, our familiar patterns, and maybe just maybe it messes a little bit with our vices. The town chooses pigs over people. Despite the terror that the demon possessed man had caused, they just didn't want a Jesus

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they could not control. Perhaps you might say, they wanted the power, rather than being willing to submit to and trust in the one who has all authority and power and control. You see, the gospel is reassuring, Jesus is reassuring.

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And yet at the same time, the message is challenging. And finally, the formerly demon possessed man desperately wanting to go with Jesus is told instead, it will come up on the screen, verse 19, "Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you and how much He has had mercy on you."

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And that's exactly what He did. He told how much Jesus had done for Him and the people were amazed. And I take it that is our right response to experiencing and knowing how much our powerful Jesus has done for each of us.

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You ought to go home, tell your own people, tell those with whom you interact with on a daily basis, tell anyone and everyone you can, how much the Lord has done for you and how He has had mercy on you because He has. If you are here and you are a follower of Jesus, you have been shown mercy.

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You have been redeemed from the terror and captivity of the strong man Satan, a terror and captivity that drove you away from God, drove you away from people that were self-destructive and hurtful and oppressive. You have been rescued by the stronger man.

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You have been adopted into the stronger man's family. You are a child of God with a new household and an assurance of nothing ever separating you from the love of God in Christ Jesus who is your Lord. Share this message and share all of it.

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Share how Jesus has power over evil spirits. Share how Jesus brings you honor after wiping out your shame, having nailed it to the cross of Christ. Share how Jesus settles your debt by the spilling of his blood because of your sin.

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And as you share of your blessed assurance, perhaps just like Fanny Crosby did, pray that this will be your song. And this is how I land. Remember these lyrics, "Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine."

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Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine, air of salvation, purchase of God, born of his spirit, washed in his blood. This is our story. This is our song praising our Savior all the day long.

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This is my story. This is my song praising my Savior all the day long.